Experimental stout liqueur.

[Norse John]

As planned, I will be making a stout liqueur brew, inspired by Grizzly Notations in This thread which is well worth a read if you haven't already - very entertaining and creative!

My plan is to get a roughly 17-18% brew of 14 litres with some viscosity and a slight sweetness to get over the probable bitterness.

The proposed ingredients are:
1 x can of coopers stout LME (1.7KG)
1 x bag of Ritchies export stout LME (1.7KG)
1 KG ED DME
125g Cocoa powder, unsweetened
454g Black treacle
1KG dextrose
90g Double snake turbo yeast/nutrients
2 heaped tablespoons of coffee granules

After fermentation, I plan to sterilise the yeast and then back sweeten if more sweetness required, but if sweet enough just to bottle up.

I'm not sure if the turbo yeast will throw off odd flavours, not sure of how it will turn out, but will be receiving the final ingredients within a week hopefully.

 

[strange-steve]

I'll be amazed if this turns out drinkable, but look forward to hearing the results

 

[Fireside Ales Homebrewery]

Sounds like an interesting experiment with a potentially fantastic outcome. Keep us posted

 

[chthon]

Your black treacle will probably overwhelm all your other tastes completely. I brewed something using this (actually blackstrap molasses, but I think they are somewhat the same), and 5g per litre would be the maximum to use, it is perceptible, but at least other tastes also are still perceptible.

 

[PhilBrew]

Hi @chthon

Your black treacle will probably overwhelm all your other tastes completely. I brewed something using this (actually blackstrap molasses, but I think they are somewhat the same) ...

... Black treacle isn't as extreme as blackstrap molasses ... it's much more like a (mass produced equivalent) version of what is described over there (link) as "second" or "B molasses", while blackstrap is "third" or "C molasses".

Cheers, PhilB

 

[Norse John]

Thanks for the comments. Luckily the mixture doesn't taste too bitter or overpowered by the treacle as of now, but the cocoa isn't coming through as much as I'd hoped... guess it's all in the hands of the brewing gods now.
All ingredients added, decided to top up from the planned 14 litres to a total of 16 litres and pitched yeast at 32 degrees C. OG was 1.126.

Also, another kilo of dextrose and tablespoon of coffee granules added to original recipe:

Final recipe:

1 x can of coopers stout LME (1.7KG)
1 x bag of Ritchies export stout LME (1.7KG)
1Kg ED DME
125g Cocoa powder, unsweetened
454g Black treacle
2Kg dextrose
90g Double snake turbo yeast/nutrients
3 heaped tablespoons of coffee granules

 

[Norse John]

Within 4 hours it blew the lid off, no hose handy for a blow off tube, so have removed airlock, covered with 2 bin bags to catch the krausen and placed in a no-go zone. Now its violently bubbling away in the corner..

This is going to be good.

 

[Norse John]

SG reading on day 3 is 1.068, which hasn't changed much for a day now... A bit worried that too much krausen overspill lost too much yeast. Gave it a taste and it is still sweetish, a nice liquorish taste though with a stout body.

I'm hoping it picks back up again as it is nowhere near as strong as I'd imagined it would be, and there is definitely sugars in the mix still for the yeast.

 

[Norse John]

Total disaster so far... The SG reading stuck at 1.068 for the next 10 days or so. So added unused ale yeast packets to no avail. Ordered more turbo yeast and added a little to no avail. The mixture was still fairly sweet, and should only have made it to about 15L of 7.5% according to the G readings. So to bulk up the alcohol content added another kilo of sugar and stupidly some red wine yeast. This seemed to kick start fermentation, but stuck again this time at 1.090. Added another kilo of sugar just now and topped it up to 19 litres from 15 and added the remainder of my turbo yeast.

So, with some imprecise mathematics and guess work and adjustments in calculation, the current mix is roughly 19L of 8%, has at least a kilo of fermentables and clearly some sugars which are not getting eaten by the turbo yeast.

I've clearly gone about this the wrong way, should have added beer yeast at the start and only the dme and lme until that hit its limit, then added the glucose and black treacle along with turbo yeast. I didn't realise that turbo yeast couldn't eat maltose. Now I've added what could be a wine killer yeast which could kill the turbo yeast and leave it stuck forever...

 

[fury_tea]

Total disaster so far... The SG reading stuck at 1.068 for the next 10 days or so. So added unused ale yeast packets to no avail. Ordered more turbo yeast and added a little to no avail. The mixture was still fairly sweet, and should only have made it to about 15L of 7.5% according to the G readings. So to bulk up the alcohol content added another kilo of sugar and stupidly some red wine yeast. This seemed to kick start fermentation, but stuck again this time at 1.090. Added another kilo of sugar just now and topped it up to 19 litres from 15 and added the remainder of my turbo yeast.

So, with some imprecise mathematics and guess work and adjustments in calculation, the current mix is roughly 19L of 8%, has at least a kilo of fermentables and clearly some sugars which are not getting eaten by the turbo yeast.

I've clearly gone about this the wrong way, should have added beer yeast at the start and only the dme and lme until that hit its limit, then added the glucose and black treacle along with turbo yeast. I didn't realise that turbo yeast couldn't eat maltose. Now I've added what could be a wine killer yeast which could kill the turbo yeast and leave it stuck forever...

Don't know if you might be on to a lost cause, and could just be throwing more money down the drain, but have you considered adding amylase enzyme to it? I think that should convert the maltose to glucose. It's what they use to make Brut IPA dry. Not sure whether it'll work in your situation but could be worth at try?

 

[Norse John]

Don't know if you might be on to a lost cause, and could just be throwing more money down the drain, but have you considered adding amylase enzyme to it? I think that should convert the maltose to glucose. It's what they use to make Brut IPA dry. Not sure whether it'll work in your situation but could be worth at try?

Thanks for the suggestion, I hadn't thought of that. Have gone too far to throw this down the drain now.

Cheers.

 

[Norse John]

There has been some improvement. Ordered some amylase and added that with some cider yeast. After, the mixture had been bubbling away for 3 days solid. I can only imagine it is hitting the wine/cider yeast tolerance yesterday, so added some turbo yeast yesterday built for grain/fruit. After adding a diluted yeast starter yesterday it continued on bubbling away.

The maltose sugars are definitely being converted, getting the same metallic taste as you'd expect from a beer fermenting, still a bit of sweetness though. Feeling a little bit more confident about the outcome than 7 days ago. Cheers for the advice Fury.

 

[fury_tea]

There has been some improvement. Ordered some amylase and added that with some cider yeast. After, the mixture had been bubbling away for 3 days solid. I can only imagine it is hitting the wine/cider yeast tolerance yesterday, so added some turbo yeast yesterday built for grain/fruit. After adding a diluted yeast starter yesterday it continued on bubbling away.

The maltose sugars are definitely being converted, getting the same metallic taste as you'd expect from a beer fermenting, still a bit of sweetness though. Feeling a little bit more confident about the outcome than 7 days ago. Cheers for the advice Fury.

Imagine if it comes out really nice, how the hell are you ever going to recreate it?
I'm really interested if you will get something drinkable after all this, it reads like the notes of a mad scientist hahaha.

I've been meaning to get some amylase enzyme myself to make a brut IPA. Might have a go at it soon.

 

[Norse John]

I've been meaning to get some amylase enzyme myself to make a brut IPA. Might have a go at it soon.

I think Amylase probably helped but would have gone about this by getting the grain/fruit turbo yeast (which includes the enzymes) to begin with and saved myself alot of time and faffing about had I known about this. Anyway, however it turns out, shall drink the lot of it!

 

[Norse John]

Well, the grain/fruit turbo yeast seemed to save it, and it had been bubling away slowly for the past week, but decided to put an end to it and stabilise it. Only had a little taste of it earlier, had just enough sweetness still not to add any more sugar, and an interesting flavour. Though I'll save judgement until after it has been bottled for a month at least, it will certainly be drinkable though.

I make it around 19L of 14% ABV, which is acceptable but a little on the light side to what I'd planned, and sure I could have got a couple more % out of it had I let it ferment another month, but this has already waaaaay overrun.

 

[stan.distortion]

Lol, keep upping that gravity and your fermenter's going to turn into a black hole! Looking forward to hearing how this turns out, if it's undrinkable then maybe add some stone chips and pave the driveway with it

Fwiw, I'd almost totally ballsed up a blacker than black stout recently (but not even close to this!), I'd gone totally over the top with dark grains and it turned out my el cheapo digital thermometer was also reading about 5 deg out, gave it a few weeks but it was definitely finished at 1.026. The only thing that saved it was a late Perle addition, it would be like drinking tar without that burst of freshness.

 

[Norse John]

It has been sitting now a couple weeks. It has a liqueur vicosity and sweetness. I'm drinking it straight here, which is fine, but could do with some ice and cream to water it down. Otherwise, it is just a sweetish vicuous jet black malty 15% liqueur..just as meant I suppose...need to take out a patent on this ****, will be the new craze.